Trout and Atlantic salmon flies evolved in Europe, particularly in Great Britain, but tying and crafting fly-rod bass bugs and the art of fishing them is a uniquely American endeavor. In some circles, bass bugs are even considered American primitive folk art. I understand their appeal. At an early age, I was captivated by the color and shape of bass lures of all types. I started carving wooden crankbaits, in part because store-bought crankbaits were too expensive for a young boy’s budget. Then, in my mid-twenties, when I decided to get serious about fly tying and started taking classes from professionals, I was immediately captivated by bass bugs and have been making them ever since, enthralled by the process of creating and animating a buggy thing thrown on a fly rod that would seduce moody bass living in intriguing watery habitats.
Early in my travels, my wife and I toured back-road towns in California’s Mother Lode on a regular basis. I was fortunate that I found a first edition of Dr. James A. Henshall’s Book of the Black Bass, first published in 1881, in a Sutter Creek antique shop, along with two well-preserved Weber Fly Tackle catalogues from 1931. Henshall’s book is a classic must-read if you chase bass and treasure the history of fly-rod angling. The Weber catalogues are generously illustrated in color and promote their products in a seductive, almost irresistible way to anglers craving an edge over both the fish and their brother anglers.
Here is the Weber catalogue on Weber-Henshall Floating Fly Rod Lures:
It is a matter of the highest pride that Weber should be the one selected to carry out . . . the principles of successful fish-taking as solved by the eminent Dr. Henshall — long recognized as foremost of American angling authorities. His original designs, representing the sum of a lifetime’s study and experiments, have been worked into practical, substantial form by Weber who alone has the personal endorsement and authorized use for the Henshall name. Weber has done justice to the trust. Here in the Weber-Henshall lure is found the highest exemplification of Dr. Henshall’s principles — generous wing spread and large-appearing body, yet airy light and offering no resistance to the closing jaws of the fish; colors and sizes proved most attractive by countless trials; shrewd hook design, schemed to set instantly with the force of the strike — all these proved factors of success are embodied in a durable, perfected fly rod lure, large yet easy to cast, without splash or ripple, “picking up” without strain on the rod. A triumph!
These hair-and-hackle bugs sold two years after the start of the Great Depression for $7.20 a dozen. The catalogue specified that the flies should be worked “still-and-twitch” — that is, cast, allowed to rest, then twitched to supply animation. Patterns included Brad’s Bravo, the FRM Mouse, and the Whiskerbug.
It is interesting to note that Ernest Peckinpaugh of Chattanooga claimed to be the inventor of the bass bug sometime in the 1920s, although Seminole Indians were using “bobs” made of white deer hair and colored fabric long before that. He went on to form a tackle company and is said to be the father of the bass bug and the unique sport of bass bugging. His creations included Peck’s Popping Bug, the Feathered Minnow, and Peck’s Hopper. Another pioneer tyer was Joe Messenger of West Virginia, with his snoot-faced deer hair-and-shellac bass bugs, which have given credence to claims that bass bugs are art forms.
At a recent auction, one of his bugs was expected to go for $150 to $300. These pioneers lived and fished in the Midwest and on the East Coast where largemouths and smallmouths were native.
California’s own version of Ernest Peckinpaugh was a disabled World War II fighter pilot named “Lucky Lloyd” Iseman, who guided at Clear Lake. He sculled from a small wooden boat with one arm and threw his bugs with the other, aided by an automatic fly reel and a bamboo fly rod. He made his living guiding and selling durable bass poppers. Some remain intact today.
In the remote area of West Texas where I spent formative years on my uncle’s ranch, my friend Carol Kennedy and his father learned how to fly fish for resident bass and to tie deer hair bugs and craft bass poppers in an area where such a cerebral approach was largely unknown. They had a sizeable ranch with several good sized all-year lakes. At the time, though, I was still shooting rabbits and chopping them into chunks that were used for bait on a nocturnal catfish trot line. Fortunately, years later, when I joined the fledgling Livermore Fly Fishers club, we had two gentleman anglers who were experts in the use of spun deer hair. Russ Kruger was a fishing partner of Jack Horner, the designer of the Horner Deer Hair pattern that may well have evolved into the classic Humpy trout fly, and was a fellow machinist, as well. He was a master tyer, and during weekly sessions in his garage, he taught us the ins and outs of spinning and trimming deer hair bodies for bass bugs.
Spun deer hair is the best material for producing soft, silent landings that avoid spooking jittery fish. Deer and elk hair suitable for spinning can be obtained in many colors. Expert hair bug tyers have mastered the art of blending and juxtaposing colors for effect. In Northern California, Steve Potter is the master.
Hair also allows the tying of bullethead sliders, which cast well because of reduced air resistance. Hair heads can be fashioned and trimmed to make Dahlberg Divers that go under when stripped and then rise again in an enticing manner. Another option with spun hair is to construct slanted-faced poppers that make an intermediate-level disturbance. Perhaps the best fly-rod bass lure, though, is Dave Whitlock’s Swimming Frog, originally called Dave’s Frog Bug, which is tied in many sizes, colors and shapes, often combined with hackle feathers, tinsel, and silicone or rubber legs. All land softly. The legs are fish magnets.
I have tied at fly-fishing expositions beside a man who specializes in lifelike hair frogs. Instead of single-bladed razor blades and scissors, he uses battery-powered trimmers on the tightly packed deer hair. I wrangled a trade for two of his creations. As I write, I’m packing for my annual trip to Mexico’s Lake Picachos. Although I wouldn’t dream of including those pieces of folk art, I’ll definitely go well stocked with frog imitations.
At those early tying sessions back in Russ’s garage, we also learned how to make popper bodies out of balsa and cork. Balsa is light and rides high. Both need sealing to make bodies that appeal to fisherman, but doing so probably makes no difference to the fish. It seems that the most bedraggled bugs are the ones that work the best. Hard popper bodies can be painted using many styles to get the effect of baitfish and frog bodies, and body finishes, such as those using epoxy, lacquer, or urethane, make a special sound when they hit the water. This is good if the bass are in a reactive mood or need to be woken up without frightening them. Some angling techniques involve shortening the leader or snubbing the cast to make the bug land hard and draw attention.
Prefabricated balsa bodies and good cork are both increasingly hard to find, and if you want high-riding balsa popper bodies, you have to buy balsa blanks of varying thickness at hobby shops and craft the body shapes yourself. But bodies made with different types of hard and soft foam are available commercially. I know a Delta guide who makes popper bodies out of multicolored laminated flip-flop sandal bodies turned on a lathe. They hold up and work very well. I’ve also found inexpensive medium-weight, multicolored foam cylinders in a hobby shop.
A new product is a tight-celled, but fairly light foam: Surface Seducer Double Barrel Popper and Slider Bodies. They come in white and a light green. Holes for hooks and legs are easy to make using a heated dubbing needle. I finish the holes with the reamers I use to clean gas-stove burner orifices. Reversing the popper to create a slider, I use a dental acrylic bur to shape the face into a Dahlberg Diver type head, adjusting the horizontal hook hole at the same time. That dive-and-rise action increases hookups greatly.
These bodies paint well with Copic air-powered pens spraying solid color or creating effects by shooting through various grid patterns, including ladies’ stockings. Always keep the air gun moving and spray lightly, repeating if necessary.
Copic’s shiny metallic colors aren’t so great, though. You have to resort hobby paints and sometimes use hobby contact cement and shiny “sprinkles” to get baitfish flash. Krystal Flash, Flashabou, or similar material in the tail or overwing also can help get that baitfish reflectance.
Hard foam bodies also come in a narrow “pencil” form. I tie my pencil poppers in both a cup-faced version and a reversed slider bullet-head style. Painted reflective silver or pearl, they imitate the elongated pond smelt increasingly found in California reservoirs. Use a Loop Knot, and you can get some side-to-side “walking the dog” action that popularized the Zara Spook crankbaits.
Several years ago I devoted a “Stillwater Fly Fisher” column to new specialty fly-rod bass lures that still can be called bass bugs in the greater context of fly-rod angling (“New Fly Patterns for Stillwater Bass,” California Fly Fisher, March/April 2014). A productive pattern that we use in the Mexican bass lakes is the Flat Fred. It imitates an injured baitfish lying on its side and is weedless. We fish it in coves that hold lots of floating timber when the winds push baitfish there. Fish will come up through green and woody debris to take the fly. The body is easily made from flat balsa stock. Another is the Schmidterbug, which chatters and walks like the Jitterbug crankbait.
Foam Gurglers as conceived by Jack Gartside for saltwater fish, tied in smaller sizes using strips from foam sheets, also could be classified as bass bugs. We tie them in cupped-face as well as diving versions using mostly white and chartreuse, and we customize them with spray paint. Tails are made from craft fur.
Color is very important. Bass can be among the most finicky of the predators that a fly-rodder can seek — they are right up there with snook, which feed from ambush in much the same way. We have seen fish refuse one color and then get aggressive and blow up on another. In the Mexican bass lakes that I fish, bass like yellow, white, and chartreuse in both surface and subsurface baits, in part because the tilapia forage fish there have these colors. The time of day makes a difference in color selection, though. Both there and locally in California, I often switch to black for the first and last half hour of light, because it stands out against the sky, and I switch from a slider to a noisy cup-faced popper.
Body types and dressings determine the type of animation that you will use in enticing fish on or near the surface. Classic shoreline angling requires casting tight to cover, waiting for the rings caused by the landing to subside, then starting a retrieve. Sometimes bass will blow up on a bug as it hits the water, even coming out of the water to take a falling fly. At other times, they will swim up and stare at a fly, refusing to take.
The best analogy that I have heard relative to enticing bass with a bug is teasing a young cat with a paper ball on a string. You never know what will work on a given day, and the bigger and older the cat, the harder and longer you will have to work. I have seen bass attack a bug that lands three inches from a rock wall, chase a fly 20 feet out, inaudibly sip in a bug without making a disturbance, and miss a bird on a low limb and then attack a bug quickly thrown to the same place. In bait-filled coves, we cast up on the shore and retrieve small Crease Flies into the water in a hopping fashion, imitating bait that has tried to escape voracious fish. Bass remember that bait will try to escape by jumping out of the water and then, injured, flop back in . . . easy pickings. On my most recent trip to Mexico, I even witnessed bass working shorelines as a team.
Design makes a difference. If you are making your own bass bugs, test the fly before gearing up a production run. My fishing buddies and I have found that the slope-faced Crease Fly generates more action and produces more takes than the flat-faced ones. I carry a range of favorite fly sizes. At times, fish respond to a switch to small patterns. At others, they want a “pop” and lots of surface-water disturbance.
Over the course of almost a century, many styles and shapes of bass bugs have evolved using different body materials and finishes, and there are many different ways to fish them. This year, give fishing bass bugs a try. It’s the classic American way of fly fishing. And it’s almost bass season in the Golden State — remember the old angler’s adage, “When the California redbud blooms, bass have moved inshore.”
